Campaigns can't be run on the cheap anymore

[Jan Klimkowski]

A prime reason for the millions is that the bought & owned puppets who run for US presidential campaigns need to spend
cash on marketing and transporting their entirely gormless entourages across the vast landmass of the USofA for pointless, stage-managed, and totally controlled, public speaking events.

A banal, if related, rationale for the cash is the need to control a candidate's image:

The former US presidential hopeful John Edwards has been indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly using $925,000 in illegal campaign contributions to keep his mistress in hiding during the peak of his 2008 campaign for the White House.

The case of USA v Johnny Reid Edwards contains six counts, including conspiracy, four counts of illegal campaign contributions and one count of false statements.

The indictment said the payments were a scheme to protect Edwards' White House ambitions. "A centrepiece of Edwards' candidacy was his public image as a devoted family man," the indictment said.

"Edwards knew that public revelation of the affair and the pregnancy would destroy his candidacy by, among other things, undermining Edwards' presentation of himself as a family man and by forcing his campaign to divert personnel and resources away from other campaign activities to respond to criticism and media scrutiny regarding the affair and pregnancy."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun...ney-affair